


Federal Rules of Evidence drabbles

by puszysty



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-22
Updated: 2011-05-09
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:56:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puszysty/pseuds/puszysty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BSG drabbles based on the Federal Rules of Evidence.  Because I'm that big a nerd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Rule 401/402:**  
Helo compared the pictures again. The answer that the paintings on the temple represented a nova was just too simple. There were a million ways to depict a nova, but the artists at the temple had chosen this design. It was the color scheme that bothered him the most. Red, blue, and yellow; the three primary colors. That had to mean something.

That was when it hit him. He had seen this design before. He remember it seeming odd because he didn’t take Kara for the type who liked bright colors. It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence. It meant something.

 

 **Rule 403:**  
Cassidy looked at the evidence again. She really hated to admit it, but her case was weaker than she’d like. She knew Baltar was guilty, she just wasn’t sure she could prove it. She needed something else, something stronger.

Cassidy wondered if she should bring in people whose names were on the death list to testify. She already had Laura Roslin, but her testimony would be related to her presidential capacity. No, she needed someone who had a truly personal grudge against Baltar. Sure, it would turn the trial into a circus. But the trial was already a circus anyway.

 

 **Rule 404:**  
A good guy. What the frak did it matter if Gaeta was a good guy? There had been lots of “good guys” who collaborated. He’d once thought Jammer was a “good guy” before they’d sent him out the airlock.

This process wasn’t about judging whether people were “good guys” or “bad guys.” The last thing they needed was for people to start feeling warm fuzzies. Tigh had picked these people because they were above their petty emotions. They had a job to do. And if Tigh heard the words “good guy” one more time, he was picking a new jury.

 

 **Rule 413:**  
Helo knew that Thorne had raped the cylon on the Pegasus. He just wanted to know how many times, so he could know how much to hate the officer.

Once he opened the log, he immediately wished he hadn’t. The record never said explicitly, but you could tell from the report which visits had involved a sexual assault. It was far more people and far more than the number of times he would have guessed, but what was worse, it appeared that Cain approved of these “encounters.” Before, Helo had just hated Thorne. Now, he hated everyone on that ship.

 

 **Rule 414:**  
Lee had assembled a team to clean up the Prometheus following the death of Phelan. It wasn’t easy, both practically and emotionally. A number of the children who had been locked up had no parents and no homes. But these children weren’t the only children there. There were others, ones who’d been put to work. As prostitutes.

Lee was disgusted. They were _children_. Children who had been forced into sex slavery because they had no one to protect their rights as children. This needed to be brought to the President’s attention. No child should have to live that way. Ever.

 

 **Rule 406:**  
In the years she’d been serving under him, Ishay had noticed that Cottle, for all the cigars and cigarettes he smoked, never drank, save for once a year. That drink always came on August 3 at 6:22 pm. It seemed like a rather odd habit to have. Ishay had never figured out why.

When Cottle excused himself this year to have his drink, Ishay decided to follow him. “Why is it you only drink this same time every year?” she asked.

“Lost my first patient,” Cottle replied as he poured himself a glass. Ishay left him to drink it alone.

 

 **Rule 407:**  
They were checking the fuel lines today to see if the fire had caused any damage. Checking the fuel lines, as if 85 men hadn’t died trying to save this part of the ship. The lines, as it so happened, were fine. His men, on the other hand, were not. They’d been vented out into space, no trace of them left.

“Chief,” ordered Tigh.

“Yes sir?”

“Let’s get some fire proofing equipment in here,” said Tigh. “We don’t want to risk losing our fuel again.”

85 men. 85 men had died, and they were just _now_ fire proofing the lines.

 

 **Rule 408:**  
“Nobody dies.”

“Gaeta-"

“Nobody dies, you got that?”

“Revolutions require bloodshed, Lieutenant. Otherwise, they’re not revolutions, they’re just uprisings. Uprisings can be crushed. Revolutions can’t.”

“This isn’t a revolution, Zarek. We’re severing the alliance with the cylons, that’s it.”

“I’ll try to keep the violence to a minimum, how’s that?”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s as good as you’re going to get.”

\----

He’d tried to explain it to Adama before they were executed. But Adama didn’t listen, just like he hadn’t listened to the fleet. Now Gaeta had to pay the price for a crime he never wanted to commit.

 

 **Rule 409:**  
Just because she’d pressed the bandage to his chest doesn’t mean she forgave him. Sure she wasn’t about to toss him out the airlock, even if he might have deserved it, but only because humanity had already made that judgment. She had seen him in the park that day with that woman, that _cylon_. Whether he knew or didn’t know, what she did or didn’t do, it didn’t matter. What she’d seen was enough. She couldn’t forgive someone who was that close to a cylon before the exodus. She hoped letting him live would make him see what he’d done.

 

 **Rule 410:**  
“I pled innocent!” exclaimed Gaius when the court recessed. “Why did you change it, I pled innocent!”

“Your plea is not probative of your innocence, Doctor Baltar,” said Romo.

“Probative, what the frak does that mean?” asked Gauis.

“It means it doesn’t matter,” explained Lee.

“Precisely,” agreed Romo. “In fact, pleading innocent only makes you look worse. It makes you look like you’re trying to evade the consequences of your actions.”

“Evade- I pled innocent because I’m innocent!” exclaimed Gauis. “I don’t want to say I’m guilty when I’m not!”

“Don’t worry, Doctor,” replied Romo. “I know what I’m doing.”

 

 **Rule 405:**  
“They’re never going to accept me on this ship, are they?” asked Sharon over the jail cell phone. No matter how many good things I do for the fleet?”

“That’s not true, Sharon,” reassured Helo.

“It is, Helo,” Sharon replied. “I’m just another cylon to everyone here. That’s all their judging me on.”

“Sharon, people don’t hate Boomer because she was a cylon. They hate her because she shot the Admiral. You can prove yourself by your actions in the opposite way she showed herself in hers,” said Helo.

“I wish I believed that Helo. I really wish I did.”

 

 **Rule 608:**  
Lee felt terrible having to ask her about it. Lee liked Laura Roslin and had always respected her. He didn’t know exactly how long she had been taking chamalla again, but he knew it wasn’t yesterday, which meant that she was purposefully trying to hide it. Maybe it was better for the fleet if they didn’t know, but it was better for his case if they did. If she was having visions like she did last time, there was a chance that her accusations against Baltar were also just visions. Lee didn’t believe that, but it was worth a shot.

 

 **Rule 609:**  
“They should’ve had you testify against that creep!” he told Zarek. “The man had you locked in detention from minute one! You saw him sell out to the cylons.”

Tom shook his head. “No, they did the right thing. I’m still a terrorist, even if I am vice president. The defense only would’ve turned the finger on me, try to make me look like a liar. As much as I’d like to confront him, I’d rather see him hang. I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that happens.”

His companion smiled. “Tom Zarek. Always fighting for justice.”


	2. Part 2

**Rule 412**  
They were in the rec room when Helo asked her, “He didn’t rape you, did he?”

She was about to tell him that it was none of his godsdamn business when some frak from the _Pegasus_ decided that it was his. “Of course not! You can’t rape a whore!” Kara lunged across the room and had her hands around in his neck in no time flat.

When the Admiral confronted her about assaulting another officer, she shrugged off the incident on account of her anger at Leoben.

Kara made sure she was alone that night before she started to cry.

 

 **Rule 602**  
Connor kicked over a stool in the marketplace in frustration. Surely _someone_ out there knew what had happened to his son. There hadn’t been survivors, but there had been witnesses. The NCP, the ones who shot up the place, they were the witnesses. But no one was talking. Maybe the frakkers were worried that Connor would string them up, but that wasn’t what he was looking for now, not yet at least. All he wanted to know, all he needed to know, was if his son had suffered. Surely someone out there could tell him that the answer was “no.”

 

 **Rule 601**  
“They say that the Threes went crazy,” said the Eight. “Are you sure we can trust what they say once we unbox them?”

“Crazy or not,” replied the Six, “she saw the faces of the Final Five. She’s the only one who knows who they are. The new alliance depends on her.”

Eight wasn’t so sure. “I don’t like that our alliance depends on someone who might not be competent.”

“You’re talking about Three as if she were a hybrid,” replied Six. “Have faith, Eight. Three will tell us what she saw. Our sister won’t disappoint us. It’s God’s will.”

 

 **Rule 610**  
“Can you believe Roslin actually trusts that cylon?” said Meier. “She doesn’t even believe in the Lords of Kobol.”

“I think Roslin’s lost her frakking mind going down to Kobol to begin with,” replied Zarek. “But we need Roslin, and if Roslin thinks she needs the cylon, then we need the cylon.”

“You don’t think she’s leading us into a trap?” asked Meier.

“Oh I think she very well could be,” replied Tom. “And it’ll look all the better if we’re the ones who rescue Roslin from it. Either way, having a cylon around works in our favor. You’ll see.”

 

 **Rule 802**  
“Racetrack tells me she heard from Hot Dog that you’ve got new competition for Top Gun.”

“You really gonna rely on third-hand knowledge like that, Lee?” asked Kara.

“Yeah well, it’s about time someone challenged you in the cockpit,” said Lee.

“Can’t believe rumors until you hear it from the horse’s mouth, Lee,” replied Kara. “Didn’t they teach you anything at the Academy?”

“Alright fine,” said Lee. “Is it true that you have new competition?”

Kara took a swig from her Top Gun cup and set it back on the table, all the while smirking at Lee. “I ain’t telling.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Rule 613**  
“Adama’s been saying for years how the cylons are our enemy, and now he’s saying they’re our friends? Has he lost his mind?” asked Seelix.

“The president’s the same way. It’s like they’ve forgotten who they are. Forgotten that they’re humans,” Racetrack said.

“I think it’s time we reminded them,” replied Felix. “Is anyone here with me? Ther’s no going back from this.”

A declaration of “so say we all” came from someone in the room. No one dared be too loud, but soon the whole room was murmuring an echo of the phrase under their breath.

It was time.

 

 **Rule 804**  
Kara was pissed. What the frak did Garner want? A direct statement from the raptor pilots themselves? They weren’t exactly available to come testify to the commander, considering they were probably dead by now.

Kara didn’t exactly hold the _Pegasus_ crew in highest regard, but she knew none of them would just fly out of range without a reason. They’d been lured into a trap, and if Garner didn’t wisen up quick, the whole frakkin’ ship would be cylon bait.

She needed to find Lee, quick. Damned if she was going to let some idiot commander get them all killed.

 

 **Rule 803(1)**  
Helo had never been so scared in his entire life. He hadn’t even noticed the mushroom clouds exploding around them when they’d landed. But now that Sharon was gone and the crowd had run off looking for help elsewhere, the billowing smoke was all he saw.

“It’s a frakking nuclear holocaust,” he said to no one in particular. He was going to die. Just like all the others they couldn’t fit on the raptor. It was the end of the worlds, and he was going to die. He’d die completely alone. That was probably what scared him most of all.

 

 **Rule 803(2)**  
“What?” he heard Gaeta ask.

“What? I didn’t say anything!” responded Gaius in an instantaneous reaction.

“You said you didn’t do it,” said Gaeta. “What didn’t you do? Were you dreaming Dr. Baltar?”

No he certainly hadn’t. He’d been quite awake, in fact. Not that he was about to admit that to Felix Gaeta. “I must’ve been,” he said. “Just a nightmare, it was nothing.”

Gaeta gave him that look that Gaius was beginning to see a lot more these days and walked off with a stack of papers.

Over in the corner, Six stood in her red dress, smirking.

 

 **Rule 803(3)**  
“Hoshi, are you sure you want to know?” asked Tigh.

“I do Sir. I just want to know if he said anything before he died, that’s all,” replied Louis. It wasn’t that he expected any dying declarations of love, or anything like that. He just wanted to know that Felix was at peace finally.

Tigh sighed. “He said ‘it stopped.’”

“It stopped?”

“It stopped. That’s all.”

‘What was “it?”’ Louis wondered. The pain? The guilt? The clock on the wall? There must’ve been a thousand different “it”s. Louis had the feeling he’d be guessing for the rest of his life.

 

 **Rule 803(4)**  
Cottle bit down on his cigar. “Madame President, you and I both know you don’t have the flu. Now would you quit beating around the bush and tell me what your real symptoms are?”

Roslin paused, then took off her glasses. “Then you know already what this is.”

Cottle knew, he just wanted her to say it. He didn’t like forcing it out of her, but having her admit it was the only way she’d have the strength to face it down again.

“I need to hear it from you Madame President,” he said begrudgingly. “For diagnostic purposes. You understand.”

 

 **Rule 803(9)**  
The population count had finally come in. Laura couldn’t believe the number was right. She’d been keeping rough estimates down on New Caprica from information she’d gathered from citizens, at least until the cylons came. Then it became too difficult to determine whether someone was really dead, simply missing, or something in between.

41,435. They’d lost two thousand people in the occupation and exodus. Two thousand people dead, for what? For the chance to put their feet on solid ground. Even she had believed in the dream of New Caprica for a little while. But it hadn’t been worth this.

 

 **Rule 803(16)**  
“They’re looking for _Earth_? You’ve got to be kidding me!” Narcho vented.

Louis wasn’t quite so mad. “It’s in the Pythian prophecy. And lots of other religious texts. It might well be out there somewhere.”

“You really believe that?” countered Narcho. “Cain wouldn’t have believed it, I’ll tell you that.”

“Why does it matter?” asked Louis. “So what if we’re looking for Earth? Gives us something to do.”

“Why does it matter?” scoffed Narcho. “Our entire race was destroyed, in case you didn’t notice. We’ve got one priority and one priority only: survival. This isn’t the time to have dreams.”

 

 **Rule 803(5)**  
“Hey Sam,” said Kara. “Remember when you told it wouldn’t matter if I was a cylon? And that I thought you were crazy? Well, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you were right, you know? That it doesn’t matter. Human, cylon, maybe none of it matters. We’re all just out here trying to survive, right? I…” Kara sighed. “I just want you back Sam. I miss you.”

“Light shines in the darkness, one spark, spark plugs newly charged, all systems go, go forward towards the light, end of line.”

“Yeah, you too Sam. I don’t know what it means, but you too.”

 

 **Rule 803(19)**  
Lee had heard a lot about his grandfather over the years. It was the one thing he and his father could always talk about. Bill was proud of his father’s reputation as a defender of civil rights in the Caprican courts. That was why it didn’t make sense to Lee that his father was disappointed in him. What he was doing was no different; he was defending Baltar’s right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Joseph would be proud of him, Lee was sure. Joseph knew better than anyone that even the lowest of the low still had rights.

 

 **Rule 803(20)**  
Bulldog had always respected his commander until the day the man decided to cross the cylon-human border. After nearly forty years of truce, everyone knew not to cross the border line. The truce was shaky enough as it was; nobody wanted to do anything to jeopardize it. Nobody, apparently, except Bill Adama.

But it wasn’t Bill Adama who paid for that demarcation line crossing, that violation of marginal trust. It was him.

Now as he sat in his cage on the cylon baseship, Bulldog swore that he would curse the name of Bill Adama for as long as he lived.

 

 **Rule 803(8)**  
Felix was sitting alone, again, in the dining hall when Dee approached him.

“Is it true?” she asked.

“Is what true?” replied Felix.

“What you did on New Caprica,” she said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” replied Felix before turning back to the food on his plate.

“You haven’t read the Truth and Reconciliation Report?” Dee asked.

“No,” Felix replied. “And I don’t want to. Please leave me alone Dee. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dee was the third person to ask him about it that day. Felix wished they had never compiled that stupid report.

 

 **Rule 803(10)**  
“Death list this, death list that. Where the frak is this death list?” complained Romo.

“I don’t know,” replied Lee. “Chief Tyrol and Lt. Gaeta both claim to have laid hands on it, but neither of them claim to know where it is.”

“You think they’re hiding something?” asked Romo. “Something that would exculpate Baltar, perhaps? Like perhaps the fact that there was no list?”

“I don’t know,” said Lee, shaking his head dismally. “Before New Caprica, I would’ve said neither of them would ever do that, that they’re not that kind of person, but now? I just don’t know.”

 

 **Rule 803(11)**  
Jeanne approached the Agathons with determination. “I’m really you guys could join us today. I don’t feel like we see you enough,” she said.

“We have a four year old,” explained Helo. “It’s not easy getting the time to come here.”

“I know exactly how that works!” replied Jeanne, now not so apprehensive of the Agathons. “I have a little boy myself. You know what, why don’t I get you some of Gauis’ sermons on tape? That way you can listen even when you can’t make it!”

“You have sermons on tape?” asked Athena.

“Absolutely! It’s God’s will at work.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Rule 803(12)**  
It had literally been scribbled onto a spare piece of paper, but that didn’t matter to Dee. She never thought she’d actually get one. A real marriage certificate. “The Colonial Government hereby certifies the marriage of Lee Adama to Anastacia Dualla this fifth day of the month of Mars.”

Dee proudly displayed it on the wall of her quarters. It meant only one thing: it meant that their marriage was real. Lee had proposed to her, she had said yes, they’d had a ceremony. Maybe one day it would be enough to convince her that Lee truly loved her too.

 

 **Rule 1004**  
Romo looked at the prosecution’s case again. They didn’t have a chance in hell at winning. There was however one small hole in the prosecution’s case. They didn’t have the death list. A list of names of people to be executed with Baltar’s signature on it would have sealed a conviction for sure. Without it, the prosecution was going to need witnesses who remembered seeing it. Romo liked that. He could poke holes in a witness’ testimony much easier than he could poke holes, figuratively, in a document. It wasn’t very much of a shot, but it was worth trying.

 

 **Rule 702**  
Felix didn’t really understand the science behind the cylon detector. The way he’d always understood diseases caused by environmental factors, the action took place on the cellular level, not the genetic. But Felix trusted Dr. Baltar anyway. The man was a genius, surely he knew plenty that Felix didn’t. And even if Dr. Baltar’s methods seemed strange, and not typical of science experiments, Felix was willing to trust him on that too. Geniuses didn’t need conventional methods, not if they’d found a better way. At least, that was what Felix told himself. Surely Dr. Baltar knew what he was doing.

 

 **Rule 705**  
“They’re cylons. All of them.”

Bill Adama looked skeptical, and Gaius didn’t blame him. A planet full of cylons on the other side of universe seemed strange at best, even to him. But science didn’t lie. And the data he was getting told him that every skeleton on that planet was cylon. However improbable the notion.

“The Thirteenth tribe were cylons.”

The Admiral didn’t seem to know how to respond. He said nothing, and proceeded to leave the room.

Gaius waited until Adama had left the room and shut the door. Then he immediately went to check his science again.

 

 **Rule 902(6)**  
The newspapers were aflurry with details of the Gideon massacre. With every new publication, the story seemed to get worse and worse. Sadly, given what she knew about Tigh, she was willing to believe that all of it was true.

“Madame President?” said Billy. “I have another one for you.”

“You can leave it over there, Billy, thank you,” Laura replied.

This was going to be a mess to clean up. Unfortunately, it looked like her only option to fix it was to go through the people who had made this as big a mess as it was: the media.

 

 **Rule 901**  
The hard part about locating Kara’s things was figuring out what was hers and what actually belonged to someone else. Her military clothing Helo expected to be tough, since everyone all wore the exact same outfits. But Helo was having trouble even with stuff he expected to be easy. Who knew that multiple people on Galactica owned a set of watercolor paints?

Still, he’d managed to locate everything, and verify that it was hers, thanks in large part to Sam. Now it was all waiting for her on her rack. Whenever she got out of the brig, she’d find it.

 

 **Rule 501**  
Roslin had come to question her about the suffocation of the cylon prisoners. She’d asked whether Helo was involved. Although Sharon knew he had been, she said nothing. She’d almost lost Helo once after he’d been put in prison, she wasn’t about to take that chance again.

If the Admiral ever found out that she’d kept quiet, she would surely be the one to take the fall. Silence was not a valued asset for a cylon, as she’d discovered time and again. No matter. It was a risk she was willing to take for Helo. That’s just what spouses did.


End file.
